This Week’s Must-See Events: We Are not in Basel

This is what Basel, Switzerland looks like. We don’t need to be there. Let’s all go swimming in the East River.

Do you see the tumble-weeds rolling through your Facebook invites? Have you walked the streets of Chelsea and assumed an evacuation order had been issued for the flood zone? No, check your email. It’s not the end of the art world as we know it; everyone is just in Switzerland for Art Basel. Except us. And luckily, we’re willing to dig deep to find you some worthwhile art events that you don’t need some serious Swiss Francs to attend. We even found out the address of MX, a new corporate-culture-lampooning art space mysteriously opening Wednesday night somewhere in Chinatown at a previously undisclosed location (relax, it’s the top floor of 177 Canal St.) And while more mainstream commercial galleries are using this week for “filler” openings, a handful of New York institutions are making sure we don’t feel like we’re missing out on the party—literally. Whitebox is opening “The Last Party” The Influence of New York’s Club Culture: Mid 1970s – Early 90s—an exhibition that reminds us how much more fun cheap, gritty, broke New York was than expensive, clean, rich Alpine cities could ever hope to be. And in a weekend-long celebration of alt comics—arguably the most democratic medium—Harlem’s Studio Museum is hosting Skin and Bones Comic Con. Santé/Salute/Prost New York!

Mon

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Gerard & Kelly: Timelining

The mixed-media collaborative duo Gerard & Kelly present Timelining, a narrative performance that moves backwards through time to describe different types of relationships, queerness, and identity. The piece was recently acquired by the museum and is being presented under the “pay-what-you-want” admission scheme.

Tue

Storefront for Art and Architecture

Facing East: Chinese Urbanism in Africa

This exhibition, curated by Daan Roggeveen and Michiel Hulshof, looks at the huge impact the Chinese government and private sector have had on African cities. China is emerging as the controversial new global power on the resource-rich African continent. From building massive new infrastructure such as rail lines and highway systems connecting mines and ports to expanding the Chinese media presence in African megacities, China is changing the face of some of the world’s fastest urbanizing regions. This exhibition is a must-see if only for the fact that it’s looking at a paradigm that’s going to impact the lives of untold millions (not to mention our planet itself) in the coming decades.

Wed

MX

MX Expo

MX, a new gallery space in Chinatown, is opening an inaugural group show modeled on a corporate fair. While it might be tempting to dismiss the faux-convention-center-aesthetic as too-late to the waning normcore trend, this foray into the blandscape seems purposeful. The artists involved have been invited to address socio-political concerns related to corporations, globalization, and the ceaselessly creepy term “human resources”. Subverting the language of late capitalism for something more than a photoshoot? Yes please. Featuring work by: Ashton Agbomenou, James Bayard, Laura Blüer, Jackie Connolly, Daniel Creahan, Addrien De Mones, Andrew Dubow, Rafael Foster, Paul Gondry, Sean Lynn, Shelby Jackson, Mark Kostabi, Tom McFarland, Andy Pomykalski, Alex Metcalf, Anna Pierce, Marcial Ramos, Prashast Thapan, and Ultras.

WhiteBox

"The Last Party" The Influence of New York's Club Culture: Mid 70S – Early 90S

This sounds like the most fun exhibition ever. Curated by Anthony Haden-Guest, “The Last Party” looks at ephemera, visual artwork, fashion, and photographs from the craziest decades of New York nightlife. From disco to punk and club kids, what would otherwise have been some of the bleakest years in the city’s history were undoubtedly the most hard-partying and culturally productive. Not only did New York’s nightlife provide a glamorous escape from the city’s then-bleak realities, it went on to have a profound impact on the arts and to some extent provided the spaces where the black/queer/women’s liberation movements could celebrate their victories.

Thu

Claire Oliver

Jazz-minh Moore: Middle of Nowhere

This is one of the only Chelsea galleries with an opening that actually looks promising this week. Jazz-minh Moore’s painting imagine an escapist hermit life in old RVs, shacks in the wilderness, and fire-side busses. Moore’s handling of paint is buttery and lovely. Standout pieces use the pale yellow of found wood as background in blindingly-bright desert scenes. It’s a testament to the artist’s color-mixing skills that this strategy is so convincing and doesn’t read gimmicky. Appropriately, it’s easy to imagine the painter lost in work like a camper looking to escape.

Fri

Reverse

MOMENTO/MEMENTO

This show is the New York debut of four artists from Cincinnati. Joe Hedges, Jacob Lynn, Corrina Mehiel, and Christy Wittmer address the desire to objectify memory—a seemingly futile impulse that’s been the motivation for so much of artistic production. Hedges’s still lives remix familiar objects to give them an Alzheimer’s-like strangeness while Lynn’s needlepoint embroideries memorialize the fleeting encounters that become “Missed Connections”. Craigslist art certainly isn’t anything new, but it’s something I can’t help but like. Maybe the ubiquity of “Missed Connections” as source material is a testament to how poignant Craigslist really can be.

Sat

The Studio Museum

Skin and Bones Indie Book Fair and Cosplay Day

Come check out indie publishers, comic artists, zines and more! The Indie Book Fair is thankfully the same day as Cosplay Day, which goes until 9 p.m. This is going to be some of the best people watching ever.

Flux Factory

STROBE Network Presents: Doored hosted by Life of a Craphead

Life of a Craphead has been hosting “Doored”, a performance-art series, in Toronto since 2012. Each edition is filmed and live-streamed, so it feels like the strangest late-night-tv variety show one can imagine. This iteration features performances from Neil Lapierre, Bridget Moser, Fake Injury Party, Laura McCoy, Lisa Smolkin, Charlie Murray, Sebastien Butt, and Jesi the Elder. There’s also going to be visual art, music, merch and more. The event is free, but space is limited so it’s advised to get there early and take it all in.

Sun

Cave

LEIMAY Block Party

The block in front of the Williamsburg art space Cave will be closed down for a performance festival featuring work by Kate Ladenheim (The People Movers), Angeli (in collaboration with Sarah Sitzler), and Lucy Kerr. I have never actually seen any work from any of these artists, but I’m curious and this event is free, outside, and features fun things like music—so it gets a total thumbs-up.